Upcycling for Christmas

Out of the 'shop bought' Christmas cards we've received in recent years, I've kept quite a few that seemed to have potential for upcycling. There was one square card which I kept looking at - a plain black background with a pretty printed wreath of holly, white flowers and some red glitter - with a lovely die cut 'Noel' sitting in the centre, popped up on a dimensional sticky pad.

However, for ages I really couldn't think of how to upcycle the card other than slapping the whole square front onto a slightly larger square card - which wasn't gonna be true upcycling IMHO. Then, when I spotted Hazel's Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge this week was to use festive trees or greenery on a card (a little or a lot), out came said box of cards to upcycle and once again I pondered over that black square card. Bingo! Sudden thought and off I went - and this was the end result - a rocker card:

I used:

- the card front, after I'd carefully removed the 'Noel' with its sticky pad backing and put it to one side - because I was going to use the Cuttlebug on the card front and didn't want to squish it

- out came the set of Tonic Studio's 'Circle Layering' dies - more about those wonderful dies below this 'how I made the card burble'

- selected a circle die just the right size for cutting out the wreath from the upcycled card, plus the next two sizes up - so three dies in total

- die cut the wreath and set it aside

- using the next size up, die cut a red satin mirri card circle and also a circle of 300gsm white card stock - set those aside

- using the largest die, cut a circle from the 300gsm white card stock - and left it in the die. This was because I was using this largest circle of card for the rocker base and, yet another great thing with these Tonic Studio dies, they have a little notch at each 'quarter hour' of the die for precision. So, I marked the card at opposite sides using a pencil, removed the piece of card from the die - then lined the pencil lines up on my Hougie board and scored down from one mark to another. rubbed out the pencil marks and (with heart in mouth) folded down the score line to form a half circle. Result! A perfectly lined up rocker base - yay!

- so then it was just a matter of assembling the whole card (using Collall glue for some 'wiggle' time) by sticking the circular wreath to the red die cut circle. Then backed that red circle with the piece of white card I'd cut at the same time - this was so that the back of the card looked matched to the rocker part 'cos the reverse of the red satin mirri wasn't a crisp white

- lined up and stuck the complete card front to the folded rocker

- added the word 'Noel' back into the centre of the wreath, using a fresh strip of sticky pad

Back to the Tonic Studio's set of circular dies, it's absolutely brilliant! As the name suggests, it consists of circular dies - but the fabulous part is that there are 14 dies in the set ranging from 14cm down to 2.5cm and they come on a magnetic sheet within a hole punched pouch (ideal for popping in the front of my 'frame dies' file). I just looked online and there's a great offer over at Amazon.co.uk at £14.72 with free delivery, a saving of 36% (I know I paid much more than that price for the set I bought a while back). The largest die still fits my Cuttlebug fine yet is big enough to cut a circular card - and although the blurb says the dies will cut up to 240gsm card stock, I used 300gsm white card stock and it cut with no problem at all. One of my all time favourite everyday die sets for sure - even though I already had a Spellbinder Nestabilities set.

So, this card is for Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge 246, where it's 'Festive trees or greenery,' and also Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra for September - where it's always 'Anything goes'.

Di
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Christmas rocker card

The latest challenge over at Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge is 'If you want to get ahead, get a hat'. It's the 200th week that Hazel has been running the challenge - wahoo!!

At first I intended using a NBUS stamp but then I turned to the box of last year's received shop-bought cards and found one which was perfect to upcycle.

I'd spotted that Elizabeth had made some lovely rocker cards recently, so after an online search I'd already bought some bigger circular dies (the largest one is 14cm/5.5" diameter), then yesterday just sat and worked out how to make a card. It really is easy-peasy lemon-squeezy but such a fun result :)

I used:

- SU 'Cherry Cobbler' card stock, die cut into a circle using the largest (14cm) die from the Tonic Studios 'Circle Layering Die Set'. Then scored right across the centre at 7cm, using the Hougie Board

- then dropped down a couple of sizes in the die set and cut out the adorable penguins

- cut a further circle in toning paper the same size as the image to cover the back of the image and stuck it down

- used a bit of eyeballing to line up the image onto the rocker base and drew a line across the centre of the back of the image

- spread a thin layer of Collall glue onto the bottom half of the back of the image and, using the line I'd drawn used that as a guide to stick the image onto the rocker section

- then added teeny little googly eyes to each penguin, which wobble to and fro as the card rocks, snigger

- final touch, a Kanban sentiment banner at the top of the card

The in-house critic was muchly impressed, and of course immediately suggested Christmas rocker cards for the little girlies in Germany. I was already ahead of him there as it was why Elizabeth had been playing making these initially!

And my opinion of the Tonic dies? Brilliant! There are 14 dies in the set, they go up in pretty small steps from 2.3cm to 14cm. They come on their own magnetic sheet in a nice little plastic packet which has fitted into one of my die folders perfectly. And, as I have no immediate intention of changing my beloved Cuttlebug, they are well within the cutting plate size. They cut beautifully too, I bought mine from Amazon UK here.

I've only made this one card so far, but am wondering if it would pay to be really careful if you add extras such as gems, die cuts etc. - just in case it ends up too weighted at one side or another so wouldn't sit properly. Mine does but then what I did add is pretty much balanced out.

Edit: And too funny - when I'd written this post I hopped back to Elizabeth's blog to link to her cards and found a lot of what I've written here about which dies to use, balance issues etc. Shame that I didn't think to check first and save a load of time; but a few blog posts slipped past when we were getting ready for the bathroom workers :(

And of course, this card is also for Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra, where it's always anything goes'

Di
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